


the world won't wait for you to come around

by Sonni89



Category: Mindy Project
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 03:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/605249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sonni89/pseuds/Sonni89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mindy and Danny get stuck at the practice doing paperwork late at night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the world won't wait for you to come around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JessBakesCakes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessBakesCakes/gifts).



> Dear JessBakesCakes, I hope you enjoy this treat! Happy Holidays! 
> 
> An enormous thank you to myrifique, katayla, and torigates for the helpful suggestions!

Since Dr. Shulman left the practice a year ago, things had not been easy. Most of their patients came back eventually, so Mindy, Danny, and Jeremy had more patients to treat than usual, and paperwork had piled up.  
  
Because trading off the Friday night paperwork shift hadn't worked out as well as they'd hoped (no one ever stayed behind), they started the Mandatory Friday Night Paperwork Lottery. Using two long and one short stick of licorice, they draw one stick each to determine who has to stay longer that night to do paperwork. This time, during lunch, Mindy drew the short stick – just like she had the last three times – and once again, she won the dubious honor of spending another Friday night at the practice.

* * *

  
She definitely did not want to do this again, at least not by herself. If she had to suffer, someone else should have to suffer with her, and Mindy knew exactly who it would be.  
  
She walked into Danny's office. “Help me do paperwork tonight?” she asked as sweetly as she could.  
  
Danny shook his head. “Not going to happen.”  
  
She thought so. “I'll pester you to no end unless you agree to stay behind to do paperwork with me tonight,” she told him.  
  
She knew Danny was not a fan (how dare he?), so she proceeded to sing all the Beyoncé songs she knew at the top of her lungs. It was Mindy, so she knew _a lot_ of Beyoncé songs.

* * *

  
“Please stop,” Danny sighed after a while and turned his chair to face her directly for the first time in at least fifteen minutes.  
  
Mindy was actually impressed he lasted this long. He had just sat through over half an hour of Beyoncé covers, hearing Mindy's (admittedly) borderline disastrous versions of 'Single Ladies' and 'Halo', among others. He had only interrupted her in the middle of the second chorus to 'Crazy in Love'.  
  
Still, she wasn't going to give up so easily. Their relationship had been off lately, and she was hoping to change that. Spending time together doing a mundane task could be the perfect way to do so.  
  
“Only if you help me with paperwork tonight,” she replied, still as sweetly as before.  
  
Danny shook his head. “Not a chance in hell. You drew the short stick, you do the paperwork. Go on, keep singing.” He nodded at her.  
  
This just wouldn't do. Mindy couldn't believe the Beyoncé songs hadn't worked. She needed a plan B and she knew Danny well enough to know what would drive him crazy. She grinned deviously. “I will cover your entire office in glitter,” she told him.  
  
She could tell he didn't quite believe her, so she added, “And please don't think I'm kidding; my second desk drawer is filled with enough arts and crafts supplies to turn this entire practice into Disneyland.” Mindy faced Danny to look him straight in the eyes, and tried to seem as intimidating as she possibly could while threatening to throw glitter all over someone's office.  
  
“No way,” Danny replied, smiling a little.  
  
Mindy was already out the door and on her way into her office. She turned around to shout, “You better believe it.”  
  
When Mindy came back, she was holding a glass tube filled with pink and silver glitter. She opened it and tilted the glass tube sideways.  
  
Just before the glitter was about to spill out, Danny yelled, “Fine! You win! I'll help you do paperwork this one time.” He sighed in what even Mindy could tell was mock exasperation. “Only because I don't want my office to look like the aftermath of my niece's last birthday party,” he added.  
  
Ha! Mindy knew for a fact that he had had a great time at that birthday party. So, he didn't actually _mind_ doing paperwork with her? Interesting. Mindy started bouncing up and down. “Yay, thank you, thank you, thank you! You won't regret it,” she promised him excitedly.  
  
She really was looking forward to it. Mindy still didn't quite know where they stood after she had gotten drunk at a work party a month ago and had told Danny how disappointed she was that they still hadn't hooked up, since she had always assumed they would. After that, Danny had never mentioned it. He had never done anything about it, either. They hadn't spent a lot of time together recently, so Mindy was worried.  
  
“Pretty sure I will,” he answered curtly, but he smiled at her.

* * *

  
“Sorry, gotta cancel tonight,” Danny told his sister Laura on the phone once Mindy had left his office.  
  
“Did you draw the short straw?” she asked him. Danny shook his head, even though she couldn't see him. He felt bad that she knew about the licorice game in the first place, just because he'd had to cancel on her before. This was different, though.  
  
“No, Mindy did,” he replied, “but she forced me to help her out.” He tried to sound upset about it, but annoyingly, his sister knew him well, and he knew that she was grinning, even though he couldn't see her.  
  
“Ah,” Laura said knowingly. “No need to pretend with me. It's Mindy. I know you're not as upset about it as you say you are.”    
  
His sister could be such a pain in the ass sometimes, particularly when it came to him and women – well, one woman.  
  
“It's not what you think,” Danny tried to explain. “Not at all. Mindy really didn't give me a choice. She sang half an hour of Beyoncé to me and threatened to cover my office in glitter.”  
  
“ _You_ managed to sit through half an hour of Beyoncé covers?” Laura had to laugh at that. “You must really love this girl,” she replied without a hint of sarcasm.    
  
“Bye,” Danny quickly said into the phone, drawing out the word. He couldn't hang up fast enough.

* * *

  
The events of that afternoon had led to Mindy and Danny sitting on the green couch of the meeting room together, both of their laps covered in papers and files.  
  
Mindy couldn't believe they'd been doing this for three hours. Admittedly, working together had been more fun than doing this alone, and they had gotten some great takeout for dinner, but it was still filling out and filing patient records and thus incredibly boring. They really needed to start doing paperwork more than once a week, so they didn't (or, she didn't) get stuck here for hours each Friday.  
  
“Ugh, this is so dull. I can barely keep my eyes open,” Mindy complained.  
  
Danny just grumbled in response to that. His eyes were starting to close, too.  
  
She knew she should pretend that this was so much fun because she had made Danny be here with her, but then again, why should she always have to be the only one to give up her evenings? Particularly when she was convinced that there was a licorice stick conspiracy against her. The third time in three weeks that she had to stay behind for paperwork – seriously? She could have been home right now, watching Notting Hill or You've Got Mail for the 153rd  time... each. But no, patient files it was!  
  
“This is a decent enough couch. We could always take a power nap,” Mindy suggested without a second thought. She was just so tired. Then she got up and actually looked at the couch. Hmm. It was a bit small for two, but it would probably work.  
  
Danny's eyes opened a little bit. “That's actually not a terrible idea,” he told her. He was a bit more awake now, his gaze also shifting towards the couch. “How do you want to do this?”  
  
It was starting to dawn on Mindy that she shouldn't have suggested it. The couch was just too small for two. Since the events of last month's work party, anything having to do with her and Danny and physical closeness had the potential to be dangerous territory. Or at the very least, awkward territory. Tonight was the first time their relationship had felt normal again. Of course, they were in an office, at night, by themselves, and she had just suggested that they share a couch, so what did normal even mean? Not that she had any complaints about the sharing a couch thing per se. She was just a little bitter that he had never tried anything after her confession, even though she was pretty sure at this point that he liked her, too. Ugh, what was stopping him?  
  
What a fabulous idea this was. She could salvage this, though. What was the most unromantic way of sleeping on a couch together?  
  
“Feet to feet?” Mindy suggested, trying to figure out in her mind if there was any chance that could work.  
  
“Sounds good,” Danny replied, then grabbed the blanket at the end of the couch. He lay down, his head facing the window. Once he was settled, Mindy saw that his legs reached over more than two thirds of the light green couch that she swore had looked a lot bigger a minute ago.  
  
She lay down on the opposite end of the couch anyway. “You need too much space,” she whined. This had been a terrible idea. This nap was going to be unromantic _and_ uncomfortable. At this point, she just wanted to get a few minutes of sleep. Mindy fought Danny for a part of the blanket and her legs struggled for more space on the too-small couch. Mindy (semi-)accidentally kicked him in the knee – he could have shared the blanket. As he cringed, he hit her shin with the heel of his foot. Mindy thought that truly had been by accident.  
  
“Ouch,” they both screamed.  
  
Danny's hand shot to his knee. Mindy hoped he was just being a baby about a little bit of pain and that she hadn't actually injured him. That was something she'd never hear the end of. She would feel a little bit bad about it if she had seriously injured him, too. To her surprise, he didn't say anything else about it.     
  
“We could try taking a nap sitting up. We'll only get to sleep for 20 minutes anyway.” Danny got up and sat back down closer to the center of the couch.  
  
“Good idea,” Mindy replied. She sat up, still keeping a bit of space between them, then turned sideways to prop her feet up onto the other side of the couch. Mindy closed her eyes and sighed. This was still really uncomfortable and she didn't know what to do with her head. Her eyes were drooping, though, and she was just _so tired_ , so she leaned against Danny's shoulder. Yeah, that was much better.  
  
At this, Mindy felt Danny stiffen a little, but he turned sideways and moved her slightly so she was lying on his chest. Just before she fell asleep, he wrapped his arm around her and covered them both with the blanket. 'This is nice,' she still had time to think before she dozed off.

* * *

  
Three hours later, there was a noise outside. Mindy startled awake and when she heard more rumbling from the waiting room, she jumped up. Mindy didn't think about the fact that much, much more time had passed than twenty minutes, and she definitely didn't think about what it meant that she had just woken up in Danny's arms. Except of course she did; she could multitask. Mindy scrambled to turn the lights back on.  
  
The sudden brightness woke Danny, too. He blinked at her, and seemed too sleepy to process what was going on.  
  
“Did you hear that?” Mindy hissed. “I think there's someone outside.” She was trying to figure out where she could walk and not be seen.  
  
“Wait, what?” Danny was wide awake now. “Are you sure?” he asked; then he scooted to the edge of the couch to see if he could peer out the glass door.  
  
“Well, I just heard noises.” Mindy was trying not to panic. She tiptoed around the room and suddenly, there was a different, much louder noise outside. “That sounded like broken glass!” Mindy's eyes went wide and she took a deep breath.  
  
“I don't want to die here, that would be so depressing,” she whispered, then added, “We should hide behind the couch.” She was already trying to slightly pull the couch forward without making a sound. She wasn't successful, though. The couch wouldn't move.  
  
Danny unplugged one of the desk lamps. “No way,” he said a little louder, already walking towards the door. He was holding the base of the lamp in his hands like a baseball bat. “If there's someone out there, they already saw the lights on in here and I'm not getting murdered tonight, thank you,” he hissed and quickly reached down to open the door.  
  
Danny had only been gone for a few seconds when Mindy heard a scream that definitely wasn't Danny's. She ran outside and saw Danny, still holding the lamp out in front of him, and Morgan, who was holding a sandwich in one hand. There was a broken glass of what was hopefully water on the floor.  
  
“Oh my god, Morgan! What are you doing here?” Mindy yelled.  
  
“Sorry, Dr. L!” Morgan looked remorseful and a little scared. “I come here at night when I can't sleep because the office has better snacks than I do at home, and I dropped my water glass when I came out of the kitchen and saw the light in the meeting room was on. I didn't think anyone would be here.” He quickly walked back into the small kitchen and came back out with a broom.  
  
When he was finished cleaning up the broken glass, Morgan lingered in his spot awkwardly, his eyes shifting back and forth from Mindy to Danny, who both looked sleepy.  
  
Great. Monday morning was going to be fun.    
  
Danny turned around, and walked back into the meeting room. He was no help whatsoever. Mindy was too tired to explain anything right now. Morgan could think whatever he wanted. “Go home, Morgan! We have paperwork to finish,” she told him sternly.  
  
Morgan was already out the door.

* * *

  
Back in the meeting room, Danny was putting back the files they had left earlier when Mindy came in. She was glad to see Danny apparently wasn't up for any more work tonight either. They really had to talk about what had just happened, though.  
  
“I can't believe you just walked out there,” she yelled at him. How could he have been that stupid? She didn't even want to imagine what could have happened.  
  
He turned to face her. “It was just Morgan,” he shrugged.  
  
“You didn't know that though! You could have been murdered!” She couldn't believe he had walked out there in the first place, and more importantly, that it hadn't taken him a second thought to grab that lamp and potentially face off with a murderer.  
  
“Had to keep you safe,” he replied with a shrug. Mindy thought he was trying to sound like he was joking, but the way he had said it sounded altogether too genuine.  
  
“I don’t need to be protected, thank you. I can take care of myself,” Mindy told him, but she stared at the floor so she could smile without him noticing. She wasn't going to tell him that she didn’t mind one bit.  
  
“I know,“ Danny said simply.

  
Mindy didn’t dare look up yet, because she didn't know what to do next. Had he really just said all that? Had he really done that for _her_? He had bragged about being that kind of guy once, but Mindy always thought it had just been that – bragging. The fact that he had stepped up when it counted meant more than she had ever thought possible, particularly for them. No guy had ever confronted a potential killer for her. This changed things; this was major.  
  
She had to thank him somehow and she thought that nothing really said, 'Thanks for making sure I don't get murdered.' Nothing she could think of quite cut it, so she felt that this was the best excuse she was ever going to get to do something she had wanted to do for a long time. Mindy closed the distance between them and kissed him softly on the lips, so lightly that it barely counted. That way, she could still tell herself later that it didn't count if she had to. “Thank you,” she whispered in his ear.    
  
She was about to turn around and walk away when Danny placed his hand on her cheek, turned her face towards him and gazed at her lips. After that, it only took a split second before their mouths crashed together, almost as if there were a magnetic force pulling her towards him. Mindy let out a soft sigh when he found her tongue and then their kissing rapidly became frenzied, finally releasing the tension between them that had been building up for a long time. They shifted even closer together, Danny's other arm pulling her in so they were as close as they could possibly get.  
  
They broke apart after what felt like only two seconds and an eternity at the same time, both breathing heavily. Mindy couldn't believe how great that had just been, and how long it had taken Danny to actually do that. “What took you so long?” she asked, muttering mostly to herself, but judging from the change in his facial expressions, he had clearly heard her.  
  
“I wanted both of us to be sober for this,” he replied between breaths. “I didn't want there to be any regrets.”  
  
“No regrets,” Mindy agreed. Fair enough. Of course it had taken him another month _and_ for her to take the first step after that, though. Men. Oh well, better late than never.  
  
“Do you want to get out of here?” Danny asked, his gaze shifting from her towards the door and back to her.  
  
“Hell yeah,” she replied, releasing a breath she didn't know she was holding. She reached for his hand and he pulled her out the door.  
  
 _Finally._


End file.
